


Crystal Clear

by ashcarterkogane (k3ith)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Coran (Voltron) - Freeform, Crimes & Criminals, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Gang Violence, Gay Keith (Voltron), M/M, Matt Holt (Voltron) - Freeform, Memory Loss, References to Drugs, Veronica (Voltron) - Freeform, Voltron, i literally have no clue what i'm doing, if I am brave enough to write it, kind of??, klance, like i've never written anything before beyond a regular essay, there will eventually be, these chars will also likely be in this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 01:26:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17132411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/k3ith/pseuds/ashcarterkogane
Summary: Keith is searching for answers after "waking up" with the realization that he's lost a chunk of his memory. He's been seeking answers for about four months by breaking into corporate headquarters and speaking to questionable people. Lance is a bartender, but somehow already knows Keith.Written from both Keith and Lance's perspectives.





	Crystal Clear

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to preface this with the fact that I have absolutely zero clue as to what I'm doing. I have literally never written a fic before. This is my first one and holy moly, I've already decided it's going to be multi-chapter. With these things in mind, please be kind to me. I know nothing about:  
> \--writing consistent personalities for characters  
> \--writing dialogue  
> \--creating a consistent, logical, and understandable plot  
> \--anything about writing something that is not a research paper or analysis paper  
> \--oh and word tenses are kinda hard for me, even though english is my first language  
> (if anyone has advice/suggestions for improvement, pls enlighten me!) 
> 
> Also, if this fic ever seems like it was written by like 23 different people, it's because I've worked on it during different states of mind, which may have influenced my writing. 
> 
> Anyway, please enjoy!! :D

It had been a long night of sleuth work for Keith, but he was no closer to finding answers than he was four months ago. All he had was a riddle, “there’s something in what you cannot see,” which was slowly becoming the rhythm to which Keith’s heart beat to. He continued to ponder those words like he did every night, thinking about the useless advice a pseudo-psychic had given him earlier in the evening when Keith had finally decided to give them a try, after all other leads led to nowhere. _It couldn’t hurt._ Unfortunately, the psychic was more disappointing than Keith could have hoped and their incessant ‘oms’ and ‘I call the spirits’ had given him a headache. He recalled their entryway, embellished with dangling clinking beads and other various trinkets--all things to make them more mystical, but no more reliable.

 

Keith took in his surroundings. It was just your typical bar with your typical neon lights on the dance floor and harsh fluorescents around the counter. People danced, swinging with the music, while others drank with lidded eyes. A couple was kissing in the corner, probably too drunk on liquor or high on dopamine shots to care if other people watched. Keith had tried a dopamine shot once. He had attached the little patch with the microscopic needles onto his neck and let it do it’s dirty work, slowly dripping chemicals into his blood for a high. It had felt good, but only just. Afterwards Keith hated himself for trying it. The happiness from it was fake and just another way to hide from the reality around him.

 

Sighing, Keith sloshed the amber liquid in his glass. The ice cubes had long since melted and the distant chatter of the bar slowly put Keith at ease as he mulled over his troubles. Maybe he could put his search to rest, just for one night.

 

“Hey there gorgeous, I haven’t seen you around before,” the bartender winked, playing on flirtatious probably in an attempt to get a tip. “Lemme guess, stoic type--few words, small gestures,” he winked again.

 

“Umm…”

 

“Guess I called it then,” another wink. _Was this guy serious?_ “Here, let me get you a new drink, looks like you need it.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

The alcohol slipped down Keith’s throat with a gentle burning sensation and with it the encounter with Lance slowly drifted from Keith’s mind. He began to call back memories from before things went blank. Stargazing with his dad. Poking sticks at the desert creatures. Moving towns. His dad dying in an accident. And then when he was much older, spending full cycles in the library, studying and training for entrance exams. Getting into the Garrison program, only to be told his entrance had been reconsidered and declined days later without an explanation. Heartbreak. Trying to find “comfort” by drinking his sorrows away. Nothingness.

 

Four months ago Keith had truly woken up for the first time in… months?? Years?? Well, probably not years, he still looked the same, so it was probably only months, but months, _plural_ , was still lost time. And Keith wanted that time back.

 

He pulled himself out of his thoughts, looking around, suddenly filled with the sensation that he didn’t want to sit idly by and lose more time. He spotted the same bartender. A long lanky boy with wind tousled hair--despite the lack of wind--a tan that was probably deeper in color if it weren’t for the awful lighting, and a bright disposition. Upon eye contact, the bartender slid back along the counter. There was a practiced ease in his movements.

“The name’s Lance,” he holds out a hand with long limber fingers and black nail polish. Keith quickly shakes it.  

 

“Ke--Akira,” Keith decided on. You could never be too careful.

 

“Alright Ke-akira, what can I do for ya?”

 

“Umm, it’s just Akira, but whatever. Does this place rent rooms?”

 

“Need a place to stay honeybun?” Lance cocks an eyebrow.

“Umm yeah.” Keith didn’t feel like dealing with this guy’s antics, even with the alcohol coursing through his blood stream. It was late, he was tired, and he had other things to do.

 

Lance takes the hint that adding his extra flair to things wouldn’t get him a tip, asks Keith to give him payment for the night, and then hands him the key without another glance.

 

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Keith kicks off his worn leather boots, stretches out like a cat, and then pulls out his voice recorder. Time to log in.

 

“Dec. 6th. This is Keith. Nothing too significant to report. I met with the psychic I found on the net the other day. Huge waste of time just like I thought. Didn’t gain any information. I think I lost a few brain cells though. Basically all they had to say was ‘OoooOooh you have great danger in your future,’ like wow. We all do. So thanks for that. [pause] I’m staying at this random bar tonight, going to return home tomorrow, try to think things through. Oh and there’s this guy I met at the bar I’m staying at. Lance. Going to stay away from him, he seems nosy. I gave him my alias, but dang I almost slipped up and gave my real name. [pause] Anyway this place has cheap liquor and seems safe enough. [pause] Okay, but what’s really frustrating me here is that this Lance guy seems familiar to me somehow and I don’t know why… it can’t have anything to do with the riddle…. He’s literally just a bartender, right? Ugh, there’s something in what you cannot see… what the hell does that even mean?? Maybe the alcohol was poisoned, should’ve just given him a tip to get him off my tail. [incoherent grumbling] Signing off.”

 

Like all of Keith’s logs, they ended on a frustrated note for one reason or another, but it always led back to the riddle. _There is something in what you cannot see._

 

After studying up on the obvious, Cloaking Technology--Cloak Tech for short--Keith entered a maze of never ending dead ends. Cloak Tech was not behind his memory loss and neither was the company InvisaCorp, the founders of Cloak Tech. From a scientific viewpoint, he understood that in the early days of invisibility technology, the illusion was created by bending light around an object, but InvisaCorp carelessly boasted that they had moved past science and into the realm of science fiction by not only bending light, but completely absorbing it, making you or whatever object completely invisible. In a sense, Cloak Tech was like a mini black hole that only captured light.

 

But as obvious as invisibility seemed to be the answer to his riddle, it clearly wasn’t the _right_ answer. After breaking into InvisaCorp headquarters on numerous occasions, obtaining encrypted classified information and posting it onto StackExchange via the old-net and several untraceable IPs--and several unique locations without a clear triangulated center, just in case--Keith received a big fat zero for answers. One computer scientist on the old-net was able to crack the encryption that he couldn’t break, but nothing interesting came of the data. Only nonsense, that may as well have been garbled in a juicer, about company income, sponsors, failed and uninteresting projects, and plans for changes in salary during the next fiscal year. The only interesting thing was that for each thing he posted only one person could decrypt the files, and they usually did it within a day, but each time Keith tried to contact them, suddenly they completely vanished from the old-net, their comments and username replaced by a strings of randomized characters, only for them to pop up again weeks later. Keith began calling them “The Rover”.

 

Despite all the dead ends, Keith had uncovered one thing, but it seemed unrelated to InvisaCorp or Cloak Tech. It turns out, there are multiple people who had found their way onto the old net like him, who were searching for answers. Missing loved ones with names the seekers couldn’t remember, feelings of being misplaced in time and location, people who questioned their knack in certain skills but had no memories of ever practicing said skills, the list went on and on. As far as Keith knew, none of these people ever found their answers, but he had to keep searching.

 

Sitting up, he hauled on his boots and headed for the door. Maybe a walk or a mindless ride on the train would help him relax. Down the stairs he went. Lance had put him on the fifth floor, far above the sound of the bar below. But now that closing time was near, there was just a small buzz of chatter as patrons trickled out the double doors.

 

Keith took the back door out, the one designated for those with rooms upstairs and workers of the bar. A chill in the air spoke of the approaching winter, the lack of clouds in the sky leaving the Earth uninsulated and vulnerable. He kicked a pebble, it’s round surface skitting across the ground. He continued kicking it until he lost it down a gutter, a distant plop indicating that it had hit water. A sigh escaped him.

 

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The walk really did wonders for Keith’s head; he would finally be able to get some sleep. But before he could cross the alley and step back into the bar, he hears a blaster go off, followed by angry shouts.

 

_Great. There goes my inner peace._

 

Another blast from a weapon and more shouting, “I don’t know who you’re talking about??!? I don’t know anyone named Kogane?! Please just leave,” the last part coming out more like an snarl than a plea.

_That was the bartender’s voice. Lance? Fuck, I knew I shouldn’t have stayed the night here._ Keith peeks around the corner to the front of the bar and sees five familiar silhouettes. _Great, not these guys again. How’d they’d even find me?_

 

With quick precision, Keith whips out the blade in his belt and thumps the nearest hoodlum in the back of the neck. He makes quick work of the second and the third, before their leader notices Keith. Well, in reality Lance noticed first, his mouth agape at the boy who just took down three people, and then the leader noticed Lance’s slack jawed expression.

 

The group shattering the peace of the night was part a larger ruffian horde who called themselves the Galra, a notorious gang that had members throughout the entire world. They were more like an organization at this point, so many of them acting on their own to bring terror wherever they tread. No one crossed the Galra, unless they had a death wish. The unfortunate thing about the Galra was that since there were so many of them, they were a vital circuit in dealing information, but not without a price. One month after Keith’s realized his life was a lie, he had ended up tangled with the Galra to see if he could learn anything. It didn’t end well for either party involved.

 

A sneer ripped from the largest of the Galra, “Kogane, I believe you still owe me something.”

 

“You’re Kogane??!? But I thought you were--”

 

“Shut it Lance, this doesn’t involve you,” he cuts him off, maybe a little more harshly than intended, and gestures wildly with his arms in a wide sweeping motion, indicated that Lance should get out of there.   

 

But instead, stubborn determination fills Lance’s features, “Um hell no, this involved me the second you walked into _my_ bar, _Mullet_.”

 

“Seriously Lance, you’re gonna bring my hair into this, _again_ . This isn’t the freakin’ time,” _who does this guy think he is?_

 

“If you two are done now, I’ll be taking Kogane on a little trip,” a wide malicious grin spreads across the Galra’s face, evil pleasure written in his eyes, “and maybe little Lance here too, since you guys seem to be such good friends.”

 

“No, no, no, no, no no, nope, not gonna happen,”

 

“Yeah, I’d rather not,” with a flip of Lance’s wrist, Keith just knows to whirl around and strike down an attacker who thought they had the upper hand. Keith takes out two more fighters who emerged from the alleyway behind the bar, while Lance shoots down three more Galra shooters who were hidden above on the roof tops.

 

“Keith look out!!” ducking, a blade whirls over his head. With a split second reaction, Lance blasts the blade now headed straight toward him to pieces, and then shoots blindly into the alley based on the projectile motion of the blade. They hear a thud in the darkness.

 

Now it’s Keith’s turn to gape with eyes as wide as saucers.

 

“What? A bartender needs to know how to handle the local gang violence,” he says with an easy smirk.

 

“Lance… how the fuck did you know my name?”

 

“What? You’re not even impressed with my sharpshooting?” a grin masks Lance’s pout. _I thought I was pretty awesome._

 

“Umm well yeah, I was, but Lance, how. The. Fuck. Do. You. Know. My. Name.”

 

“Just felt right, man,” he says, letting Keith off with a shrug.

 

“Alright fine,” Keith turns to leave, knife back in his belt, fists clenched, and nose scrunched in frustration.

 

“Hey,” Keith stops and turns around. Lance is jabbing a finger with a painted nail in his face, “Aren’t you going to help clean this mess up. At least half of it is yours.”

 

“I thought you were used to taking care of the Galra,” Keith’s voice falls flat, with annoyance.

 

“I can’t hide ten bodies on my own, man. Either you help or I kick you out of your room,”

 

That grabs Keith’s attention, “Seriously?”

 

“Yes, _seriously._ ”

 

“Fine, but I’m only helping so that I don’t owe you anything.”

 

“Whatever, _Mullet_.”

 

“Enough with the hair already,” and keith’s eyes are already rolling out of his head, down the alleyway to the next town over.

 

After more bickering and plenty of playful insults, they devise a plan to remove the bodies. Since the Galra weren’t dead and neither supported unnecessary violence they decided to haul them all onto the 2am municipal waste train that moved silently right along the edge of town every Thursday.

 

Waste was typically deposited in chutes that directed the trash through a series of tunnels to the train that chugged its way to the sorting center, where wastes went through an elaborate system to separate items by weight and material. Then various robots sifted through the garbage searching for containers that may still hold liquid, in which the liquid is retrieved and taken to a separate center for filtration. Decomposable waste is also taken a different route to large compost bins where the natural process is sped up by genetically modified microbes that process materials ten times the rate unmodified organisms would. Mechanical arms would till the quickly decomposing soil. Personnel on site underwent strict surveillance and detoxification to ensure nothing left the facility that wasn’t supposed to.

 

Of course, the Galra wouldn’t reach the sector for decomposable wastes. They’d end up sifted out in the first stage of sorting or perhaps they’d wake up on the train before they even reached the center. Irregardless of what would happen, they’d end up far far away from Keith or Lance, which was exactly what they wanted. Sure, more Galra might show up shooting first and asking questions later and sure the ones they just dumped might come back for more fun, but that was a bridge Keith and Lance would cross later. For now, all they wanted was some much needed rest.

 

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The hours tick by. Lance’s eyes remain closed in the semblance of sleep, but at this point he isn’t kidding anyone. It’s 4am and rest is out of the question tonight… this morning?? Who knows. But three thoughts keep reeling through Lance’s head on repeat, since his mission with Keith. _How did I know his name? I don’t know him… I know him..._

 

Sitting up, unease and anxiety slithering up his spine like serpent ready to make its kill, Lance leaves the room. He has to do _something_ , since sleep is impossible. Lance padded across the floor, his slightly calloused feet making small scuffing sounds on the linoleum in the kitchen.  He rinses a plate, two butter knives, and a glass. On hands in knees, he reaches into the lazy susan cabinet, rotates the little swivelling platforms to find some peanut butter and chocolate spread, and then opens the refrigerator door in search of milk and bread.

 

He sets to work making his sandwich, spreading the chocolate and peanut butter on generously, taking it all the way to the edges. Lance pours milk into his glass until the cohesion of the water within causes it to create a delicate dome, the surface tension just barely keeping it together.

 

A few minutes later, the glass is empty and the sandwich is gone, and Lance is over by the sink washing up. Soap suds creep up his arm as he cleans. The water splashes over the counter. The sound of a blaster charging up stings his eardrums.

 

_Wait…_

 

“I don’t know who the fuck you are or what the hell you’re doing in here, but you have ‘til the count of three to leave or so help me your head will be nothing but slop.”

 

Stunned silence ensues.

 

“Veronica… it’s me, Lance,” he puts his hands up in submission, confusion gracing his features.

 

“Listen _buddy_ , I’m giving you one last chance to leave _my_ home in one piece. Take it, or leave it.”

 

“...Veronica? Roni? What’s happening here?”

 

“Get _out_.”

 

Lance edges his way around the kitchen. He figures if he makes a direct break for it, he won’t make it more than a few steps. Veronica keeps her blaster trained on him, following his every move.

 

_Roni doesn’t recognize me._

  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! <3


End file.
